


If You Stay By My Side

by Riverthunder



Series: The Prisoners and the Paper Planes [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Communicating With Letters, Gen, M/M, Paper Plane Messages, Peter is Stephen’s Son, Prison camp, Prisoner Peter Parker, Prisoner Stephen Strange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 03:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16610936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riverthunder/pseuds/Riverthunder
Summary: Stephen and Peter are prisoners, whose only connection to the outside world is a man who sends them messages written on paper planes. Stephen can’t help when he begins to fall in love with him.Unfortunately, their tale is destined to end in tragedy.





	If You Stay By My Side

**Author's Note:**

> I’d like to quickly say, while this story is based on _Prisoner_ and _Paper Plane_ and takes place in a prison camp, it is _**not**_ meant to take place during any real world events. 
> 
> Inspired by _Prisoner_.
> 
> _Prisoner_ : [Here](https://youtu.be/VoK5d58G20c)  
>   
>  _One day, some place_  
>  _One of the prisoners_  
>  _Fell in love with a boy outside the fence_  
>  _So sad…_  
>  _Feel so sad…_

Stephen held Peter’s hand, keeping a close hold on him, careful to keep the guards in his sight. He crouched down beside Peter, and plucked up a dandelion, blowing gently on it. The seeds scattered and Peter giggled excitedly, reaching for a flower of his own.  
Stephen produced one, smiling as Peter eagerly scattered the seeds with his breath. They may be prisoners, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to give his son some semblance of normal.  
Stephen looked up, gazing towards the fence.  
A man stood there, his back to them, admiring the pretty blue sky and the thick, fluffy white clouds.  
He turned, and caught sight of Stephen and Peter. He offered the two a smile and wave, and Stephen suddenly felt his heart captured by the stranger. Even at a distance his black hair was flawlessly done, his facial hair neatly trimmed, his smile kind and welcoming.  
But as much as Stephen longed to walk to his side- perhaps drop a cheesy one liner in an attempt to make up for how terrible he surely looked in comparison- he couldn’t.  
He was behind the fence, a prisoner. The man was on the other side, free.

~(*)~

Stephen watched as Peter hummed to himself, folding paper airplanes and tossing them gently around the room. Stephen carefully picked up one of the sheets of paper, smiling to himself. Perhaps….  
He took a pencil and began to pen a letter, just a simple little thing- and he folded it into a paper airplane.  
In the morning, when he and Peter were walking around in the sunshine, he caught sight of the man again, and when he turned and smiled at Stephen, the prisoner took the paper plane in his pocket and threw it into the air. It caught the breeze and sailed over the fence into the man’s hands. He seemed shocked, but he opened the plane, smiled, and waved at Stephen and Peter, before turning and walking away, pocketing the paper plane as he went.

~(*)~

Soon the two were engaged in daily correspondence, throwing paper airplanes to each other over the fence. Peter loved to wave furiously at the man every time he saw him, and the man always waved back, seemingly just as eager for Peter to see him.  
It was easy, trading the letters, for Stephen to temporarily forget that he and Peter would never be free again.  
But he always came back to reality in the evenings, holding Peter close to keep him warm in the cold “room” they lived in.  
That hope he was clinging to- that one day he’d be free, and Peter would run around with other five year olds, go to school, and make something of his life- he knew it wasn’t ever going to see it become reality.  
He would never meet the man without the fence separating them.  
He knew that, despite his fantasies that hoped for something else.

~(*)~

But even if he would never be free, having the man send him paper planes, and sending paper planes back- that made his life worth living. There was something there- something comforting.  
He liked memorizing the words the man wrote on the paper, loved seeing familiar things in the paper, like the way the man wrote his “y”s and “f”s when he was excited, the way he wrote a flourishing question mark; he loved it all.  
All he wanted was to have a conversation with the man, hear his lovely voice- because even if Stephen hadn’t heard it, he knew it was lovely.  
He would never be able to put how much he loved this man, whose name he did not know, whose voice he had not heard, into words, but he would try, in his thoughts. Besides, if they would never formally meet, well…. Well, that meant he could have fantasies about them having a life together one day.

~(*)~

It didn’t matter that the man would never love him.  
It didn’t matter that they could never be.  
It didn’t matter that Stephen and Peter would never be free again.  
All that mattered was that when the man visited, and sent a paper plane over the fence, it was like the sun had shone on Stephen, like he was finally being blessed with something good after all the hell he went through, trying to protect Peter in this place, and give him the love he deserved when Stephen so often felt devoid of any happiness at all.

~(*)~

So, for months and months, Stephen and the man sent paper planes to each other.  
Stephen loved each and every one of them.  
Peter loved them too- Stephen was teaching him to read with them. Peter was now happily calling him Papa Stefen, mostly due to learning that “ph” usually made an “f” sound, rather than the “v” sound Stephen’s name made. It was adorable, in all honesty.  
The paper planes were everything. They made his life and Peter’s life better.

~(*)~

Then, one day, the man came, and threw a paper airplane to Stephen. The prisoner caught it, and read the words:  
“ _ **Dear Stephen,**_  
_**I’m moving with my family. This will be the last time I can write you and Peter letters. Please always keep a smile on your face for me.**_ ”

~(*)~

Stephen had never felt such emotional anguish in his life. Was it always supposed to hurt this much? Someone leaving? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t think so.  
But the idea of losing the man…. Losing his letters…. Quite frankly, it broke Stephen’s already broken heart.  
He didn’t think it was possible to cry so much, though he was careful not to cry around Peter. His son needed to stay hopeful, even if his father was not.

~(*)~

Somehow what little light Stephen thought there might have been had dimmed. Without the man’s letters, Stephen didn’t think he would ever smile again, except for Peter, who _needed_ him to smile.

~(*)~

So Stephen kept the letters, even though as the months passed the man never returned, never to bring another letter, and Stephen and Peter stayed locked in that wretched cage.  
Somehow Stephen knew it wouldn’t hurt so much if he could follow the man, but he would never be able to do that.  
He would never leave this wretched place.  
They would never leave.  
He and Peter were doomed here.  
Not that he would ever tell his son such a thing.

~(*)~

Stephen and Peter grieved the loss of the man, and never receiving another letter from him, but Stephen hoped they would be able to move on. He kept up Peter’s reading lessons with the letters they already had, carefully refolded into paper planes after each reading.  
One day, little Peter, clutching one of the letters, ran into one of the guards.  
“Watch where you’re going, boy,” spat the guard, a man with snow white hair and a mustache.  
“Sorry, sir,” Peter squeaked, trying to retreat back to Stephen’s side.  
The guard snapped his fingers, and more guards seized Peter so the white-haired guard could seize the paper airplane in his hand.  
“Let him go!” Stephen snarled, moving to try and wrench his son from the guards’ grasp.  
Other guards grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground too.  
The white-haired guard unfolded the plane in his hand, and read it aloud.  
“ _ **Dear Stephen,**_  
_**I am so glad to hear that you’ve been enjoying the warmer weather. Hopefully it will stay nice; you an Peter both deserve to enjoy the comforts of summer.**_ ”  
The guard laughed. “How _touching_ ,” he sneered.  
“Please give it back, sir!” Peter pleaded.  
“Peter, hush,” Stephen said quickly. “It’s fine, Peter, don’t worry about it.”  
“Please give it back! Papa likes that letter!” Peter pleaded.  
The guard glared at Peter, then smacked the child across the face, making him cry out.  
“Hold your tongue.”  
Stephen snarled, wrenching himself free of the guards holding him back and punching the guard who had slapped his son directly in the jaw.  
The guards moved to seize him again, and the white-haired guard, downed by Stephen’s punch, got to his feet, and glared down at Stephen, now pinned in the dirt while Peter cried for him, screaming apologies.  
“You shouldn’t have done that,” spat the guard. “Get rid of them,” he snarled to the others, tearing the paper plane in his hands to pieces and legging the pieces flutter to the ground.  
Stephen couldn’t help being a bit relieved that it was all going to be over now. As they locked him and Peter in the chamber with other prisoners, he hugged his son, trying to comfort him as he cried in fear.  
He tried not to focus on the ache in his heart- he wished he could see the man’s smile again. See his perfect white teeth, his perfectly done black hair, hear that lovely voice….

~(*)~

“Don’t cry, Peter,” Stephen murmured, even as his heart was racing. “Come on, now. It’s going to be alright. I’m here. You’re not alone.”  
Peter gave him a watery smile, but quickly sank right back into the broken hearted, terrified sobs.  
“I know, little one,” he murmured. “I know.” He hugged the boy close, still wishing that he could prolong his life, just for a few moments. Just long enough to see the man, just one last time.  
He missed him.  
He had never heard his voice.  
And he missed him.

~(*)~

If it weren’t for that beautiful man, he wouldn’t have had so many things- eloquent words to read, to take his mind off of the horror of the prison, a way to teach Peter to read and entertain him.  
“Papa?”  
“Yes, little one?”  
“I love you.”  
“And I love you.” Stephen hugged the child closer, pressing his lips gently to his head. “You are my greatest accomplishment.”  
The man had come and gone; he had never returned. But even as Stephen reflected on the memories that had made this final chapter of his life more bearable, he couldn’t deny that if he had to choose between the man or Peter, he would always choose his son.  
Still….

~(*)~

How would things have been different if the man had spoken to him? If, somehow, he had been freed, and he and Peter had met him? Would anything have changed besides this shred of his fate?  
Perhaps not.  
But still, he clung to the image of the man for comfort. Clung to that damned perfect smile.

~(*)~

As the life was being choked out of them, Peter and the other prisoners screamed, crying in pain, but Stephen just sobbed, too broken-hearted to scream out. He just held his boy to his chest, wishing that he could talk to the man before he died. Just talk to him.  
Just hear his voice.  
Please.

~(*)~

It was impossible to breathe now. The air was like fire in his lungs, tearing them apart without bringing relief. He was going to die.  
Peter was going to die.  
His son gripped his shirt, his cries panicked and anguished. And still, Stephen could only think of one guilty wish.  
Just one thing, one thing he had desperately wanted to know but had never learned.

~(*)~

Stephen clutched Peter to his chest, listening as he gasped out his final breath.  
Stephen felt tears in his eyes as his own last breath was choked out of him.  
All those paper airplanes, for all that time… and he’d never thought to ask….  
How had he never thought to ask?  
Such a common first question...  
Stephen slumped, lifeless, his arms still cradling his son, his final thought dying as the light left his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

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